My postbag as the Guardian's crossword editor contains significantly more complaints than compliments. That's life. Here is a typical contribution from "a disgruntled English teacher": "My frustration and anger with the newer generation of setters is growing. Many of them seem to ignore the basic laws of grammar, punctuation and syntax to show their cleverness. I would not have accepted such offerings from my charges and would have asked them to do it again." My normal tactic is a soft answer in the hope of turning away wrath, but here the unhappy pedagogue seems to be missing the point that cryptic clues have to be read through the eyes of Jacques Derrida's deconstructionist school of linguistic criticism.

My correspondent's ire was focused on the Chifonie puzzle for April 27, though Chifonie and some others on his hate list might be flattered at being included in the newer generation. He faulted "Refuse to give birth (6)" for LITTER (double definition) because "litter" is not normally used as a verb; "Official will head to capture pirate (7)" for PROBATE (P[rob]ATE) because "pirate" is also not normally a verb; and "Checking drink's without fault (6)" for NOSING (NO[sin]G + & lit, since that is what you do to make sure a bottle isn't corked) because "prying" would be a more exact synonym than "checking". Since the art of writing good cryptic clues lies in playing freely with the laws of grammar, punctuation and syntax, I don't know how to reply. The complainant's blood pressure would not be helped by my favourite Chifonie clue: "Saw dog wearing lead (7)", where "saw" is not a verb and "lead" is not the thing attached to a collar, but the metal (atomic number 82, symbol Pb). Answer: P[rover]B.

A second line of complaint is that the Guardian crosswords have been getting more difficult of late. There may well be some truth in the charge and it has been noted. But, in principle, the policy is that each week there should be two easier, two middling and two harder puzzles. Classification is highly subjective, but in my defence, here are the figures for 2005 (the past year, as the home secretary might say, for which we have full statistics).

We published 312 puzzles in the year. Of these, Rufus had 41, Araucaria 58 and Paul 41. Of the other setters, Gordius was on 24 and Bunthorne 19. The rest each had one a month or less. On this basis, I would tentatively suggest that, as with murder and other violent crime, the widespread perception that things are rapidly getting worse is not supported by the evidence.

· Hugh Stephenson's book, Secrets of the Setters: How to Solve the Guardian Crossword is published by Guardian Books at £12.99